The traditional shoe uses shoe laces threaded through eyelets to tighten the shoe around the wearer's foot. Similar lacing systems are used in other apparel, accessories and equipment to tighten the component on the user. Newer closure systems have been developed to replace the traditional shoe lace that must be hand-tightened and tied by the user (or his/her mother). One such system is the BOA closure sold by BOA Technology, Inc. The BOA closure utilizes a reel and spool system operable to tighten a lace, cable or wire that is wound through fittings on the component.
One example is shown in FIG. 1 in which a shoe S includes a lacing system 10 that incorporates a BOA closure 12. The BOA closure may be constructed as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,950,112 (the '112 patent) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,954,204 (the '204 patent), the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. The lacing system 10 may be configured as shown in FIG. 2 in which the lace or cable 15 extends on either side of the closure 12 and wraps around guides 20, 23, 24 and 26 that are mounted to the shoe, such as by mounting pads 21. A dial 13 of the closure 12 is manually rotated to wind the cable 15 onto a spool within the closure, thereby shortening the effective length of the cable and tightening it about the guides. The closure includes a one-way clutch mechanism that holds the spool in its rotational position with each rotation of the dial. The closure 12 further includes a release mechanism that releases the one-way clutch to allow the cable 15 to unwind on the spool a sufficient amount to release the tension in the cable and to allow the cable to be pulled further out of the spool as required to fully loosen the closure system.
The BOA closure 12 is an improvement over the traditional shoe lace for several reasons. Perhaps the most significant improvement is that it eliminates the need to manually tie the ends of the shoe lace together while maintaining sufficient tension in the lace to achieve a desirably tight fit of the shoe on the foot. The BOA closure 12 also allows the cable tension, and thus the tightness of the lacing system, to be incrementally adjusted until just the right tightness is achieved.
However, even as the BOA closure system is an improvement over manual shoe laces, it still requires manual intervention to adjust the lace tension “on the fly”. If the lacing system 10 needs to be tightened during an activity, the user must cease the activity and then manually manipulate the BOA closure 12 as required to reduce or increase the tightness of the lacing system. Tightening may only require a single click of the dial 13, but loosening the lacing system requires completely disengaging the BOA closure 12 and then re-tightening by manually rotating the dial.